Sons of Abraham: Terminate (17 page)

              “I think you’re up by two.  Number of times saving each other’s lives, that is.”

              “Really, just five to three?”

              “Don’t get cocky,” she laughed.  “You already did that, remember?”

              He offered her a fake scowl but pointed towards the bed.

              “Get into the bed, I got the floor.”

              “Not with your injuries, especially your head.  The floor pressed against your skull won’t do you any good.”

              “I’ll be fine.”

              “Yeah, cuz you’ll be in the bed.”

              Bearden sighed, bent down, and scooped her off the floor.  She tried to wrestle free but quickly realized how pointless her efforts were.  He bent over and gently dropped her on the bed.  His hands drew the sheet up over her shoulders, then he stretched the shirt over his head and tossed in the corner.  She wanted to sit up, but he’d already turned off the lights before she could open her mouth.

              She heard him plop down hard on the floor, the pillow scraping against the cold surface as he tried to get comfortable.  Her eyes adjusted to the black, the faint light from the clock showing her his hulking form, lying on his side.  She damned herself, brushing a tear from her eyes, but doing everything she could to avoid sniffing.  It was always the sniffing that gave it away.

              “Bear,” she whispered, trying not to allow her voice to crack.

              “Janys.”

              “Get up here.”

              His first instinct was to protest, but his thoughts wandered.  The short kiss forced onto him as he held the hatch open to the tank, certain that they’d never see the other’s face again.  The long, long kiss on the pier, trying to avoid detection from the Divinity goons.  Somehow, he just didn’t have it in his heart to protest anymore today.

              His hand clutched the pillow and blanket, pulling them off the floor as he coaxed his muscles to move.  He crawled to the bed, slid onto the edge as Janys drew back the sheet and moved herself to the far end.  He shifted quickly, trying to lay on his side, his back turned to her, but a strong hand clutched his shoulder and guided him to lie on his back.  Janys nestled her narrow face onto this chest and drew the blanket up over her.  Bearden pulled the sheet the rest the way off the floor, throwing the corner over her and pulling it up to his bare stomach.  His arm wrapped around her bony shoulder as he pulled her into his chest.  Janys smiled, closed her eyes, and drifted off to a much-deserved slumber.

              Jones sat listening to Vanessa’s conversation with one of Wilke’s aids on the screen though his attention was drawn to other matters.  The formulas and schematics he’d seen raced through his mind, leaving him giddy with the seemingly endless possibilities that awaited him back home. 

              The thought brought another problem to his attention, causing him to play his practiced speech through his head, over and over, attempting to get each line just perfect.  He’d confirmed his suspicion, allowing for his speech to be true in nature.  His timing, however, would be off if he didn’t wait for Keenan to return from his expedition.  Somehow, the historian thought that spending all day in the long maintenance tunnels would prove fruitful.  Jones had checked the map, sighing with impatience as he calculated how much longer the man needed.

              “I’m telling you that there is NO organization up here at all,” Vanessa snapped at a plain looking aid.  “Half the map is incorrect.  Every time I think I’m walking to an unused barrack, I wind up finding a bar or meeting room.  It’s infuriating.”

              “That may be,” the aid told her.  “However, Vice President Wilkes has made it quite clear that no more manpower will be spent on your efforts.  You will have to make do with what you have.”

              Vanessa withheld her furry as the screen went to sleep, indicating that the transmission had been ended.  She closed her eyes and gently pressed the palms of her dark hands against the smooth surface, praying for serenity. 

              “Jana didn’t budge, did she?” Jones asked, pretending to care.  “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

              “Well I am,” she said, twirling around in her seat.  “She’s the one that started this expedition.  Now that we’re on the right track, she acts as though she doesn’t care anymore like this whole thing was our idea that she reluctantly put up with.”

              “Maybe something changed,” Jones told her, still looking down as his data pad.  “Maybe finding Gabriel is no longer a priority.”

              Jones felt a slap to his mind at his own words.  Had something changed?  Jana Wilkes was desperate to find Gabriel, all in an effort to get his blackmailing superiors off her back.  They’d threatened her daughter, on multiple occasions.  Had she found the means to protect Emilia Wilkes from the clutches of Divinity Corporation? 

              Vanessa continued to stare at Jones, still attempting to understand his position.  The tall man with the perfect hair and face always wore civilian clothes, but with a military flare.  His current jacket was navy blue but resembled the style of the gray jackets worn by most of the Earth’s military commanders and investigators.  The thought had crossed her mind on more than one occasion that the man may have been military, but the way he spoke led her to believe he was of higher education, using words and phrases that fit with her and Keenan, rather than their military escorts. 

              The thought reminded her that she hadn’t seen Sanchez or Haynes for some time now, leaving her to question where they’d disappeared.  Haynes, and whatever the other one’s name was, didn’t surprise her with their absence.  Sanchez, however, was in charge, and unlikely to be absent when needed.  Right now, she needed all hands on deck. 

              “You understand this whole trip was pointless,” he muttered, standing from his seat and moving to her side.  “You never considered the act of genius that brought us here in the first place.”

              He slipped the tablet on the table before her, which she snatched up, offering him a scowl as she looked down at the blue, backlit device.  She scrolled the screen up and down, then handed it back to him in disgust.

              “What am I looking at?” she muttered. 

              “It’s the docking records from the day Gabriel’s ship went missing,” he informed her.  “I’ve been over it multiple times, and I even connected with the backup files on Earth.  That ship was never here.”

              Her face froze, daring him to speak another word.  He watched her weigh the information, playing it through her mind and looking for a flaw in his logic.  It was the lack of seeing the ship’s I.D. number that brought them to Earth’s Gabriel Ring, and now the same information was stomping their progress beneath a heavy boot.

              “He’s right,” Anderson added from the open doorway.  “Gabriel’s ship was never here.”

              Jones watched as the two plump men entered the room, both looking flush, but pleasantly happy given the situation.  The two men chose seats and plopped their heavy bottoms onto them, both allowing a sigh of relief to escape their lungs as though they were synchronized.

              “They why you look so damn cheerful?” Vanessa snapped.  “You both just proved we’ve been wasting our time up here.  Shouldn’t we be packing our things and heading home?”
              “Oh, we should be packing,” Keenan replied.  “But we’re not heading home.  Not yet anyways.”

              The two men shared a laugh, adding to the hostility that Vanessa Clarkston was holding back with all her might.  Her eyes shot back and forth, waiting for one of them to continue with their findings.

              “Well, what did you find?!” she snapped, her impatience boiling over.

              “Oh, I’ll let Anderson tell it,” Keenan laughed.  “It was his discovery.”

              “Oh, thanks,” the man replied.  “As Jones here was saying, ain't no record of that ship docking with THIS station, ever.  I kinda thought the same thing, so I went and checked all the records.  Boy, you shoulda seen the look on this guy’s face when I told him.  Poor man was fit to be tied.”

              Keenan laughed, holding his stomach as it tested the elasticity of his shirt and pants.

              “But we were checking the maps to the ring when I remembered something else.  We send maintenance drones to the little ring about once every three months.  Well, see for yourself.”

              The man shoved himself in front of Vanessa and fired up the terminal before her.  She pouted, throwing her arms over her chest as she kicked back on the floor, scooting the chair away from the man’s behind.  His dirt-ridden fingers breezed the screen, finally pulling up a video saved from last month’s maintenance. 

              “There ya go.”

              He stepped away and allowed for Vanessa and Jones to see the screen.  It showed a docking ring that passed by the camera in first person.  The door opened, revealing an enormous chamber on the other side.

              “My God,” Vanessa remarked.  “That must be a hundred feet wide inside.”

              “Two fifty, actually,” Anderson proudly replied.

              They continued to watch the video as the drone passed over the floor, sweeping to the left.  They were greeted with rows of control panels, all with seats in front of them, looking far too much like the first room that led to the Cyber lab.  The video lasted for ten minutes, showing an array of hallways the drone passed through before reaching its destination.  Vanessa tried to count the doors as the camera passed them, but gave up after fifteen.

              “You mean the small rings are stations too?” she asked, turning to Anderson with a smile.  “Why don’t we ever use them?”

              “Ah, I don’t know.  No need I guess.  We send the drones in to clean the air scrubbers, and check the levels on the blue and green goops.”

              “Goops?” Keenan asked, unaware of what the man spoke.

              “Yeah, I don’t think anyone knows what to call it.  They’re two super thick liquids.  One is green, the other one is blue.  We store them both here.  Can’t tell ya how many scientists have taken samples back to Earth with them, but no one seems to know what the stuff is.  All the records show is a long strand of synthetic molecules.”

              “What’s it for?” Keenan asked. 

              “They say it’s what makes the traveling faster than light possible.  Ya, mix a tiny drop of the blue with a tiny drop of the green, and boom, power.  Pretty nasty stuff, though, don’t ever try to combine them yourself.”

              “How widespread is the reaction?” Jones asked, suddenly interested.

              “There’s a safety video they make us watch every year.  Some egghead got the idea to work with the stuff out on that space station on Mars.  Well, ya know what happened to THAT place.”

              “It was wiped off the surface of the planet,” Jones muttered.  “Along with a hundred miles of the planet itself.  Made a crater twenty miles deep.”

              “Yeah, and that’s the stuff that caused it.  The video was from a satellite that was orbiting the planet.  Every looks okay one second, then this big ball of light fills the screen.  There’s a big time lapse, like two weeks, then you can JUST see through the cloud long enough to see that crater you talked about.”

              “Did they say how much of it was combined?” Jones asked.

              “Nah, no way of knowing for sure.  The ring is programmed with the proper volume to use for each ship.  Calculates the mass and distance and some stuff.  I don’t know, never claimed to be smart.”

              “We’re getting off subject” Vanessa informed them.  “Go back to the small ring.  Do we have records for those as well?”

              “Oh no, no records at all.  I just thought it was worth a shot was all.  Ton of room inside those things and no record of what’s in it.  The only map we have is the ones we drew from the drone videos.”

              “Remarkable,” Keenan added.  “Can our harrier dock with it?”

              “Oh yeah.  Not much difference between your transport ship and the ones we use.  I’ll get ya the docking the codes and get them to the pilot for ya.  How soon do you want to leave?”

              “Immediately,” Keenan laughed, smacking his hands together with joy.  “Imagine, it’ll be just like the Cyber lab.  A place where no one has set foot in hundreds of years.”

              “Well, don’t know bout that.  Had to send a person there when the drone got stuck once.  The life support is off, though, so you’ll need suits unless you can access the system and turn it on.”

              “I’ll take care of that,” Jones offered.  “Perhaps you could spare a few suits for us?”

              “Yup, in the armory.  I’ll take ya there myself.”

              Jones forced a smile as he nodded to Keenan and Vanessa.  The two experts nearly burst from their seats to return to their rooms and pack.  Jones followed closely behind Anderson, pretending to listen as the man rambled on about the multitude of issues they had with the maintenance drones.